Meh, don't really buy it. I believe what showcases the quality of a coaching staff is how many kids not highly touted going into college go on to the NBA. That shows coaching ability in developing your players, not just riding your 5 star kids who probably could have skipped college altogether. I'm not suggesting K isn't/wasn't a great coach, just don't buy that he gets them to the nba like what calipari claims. The kids get themselves there for the most part. Now, if you want to talk about how well these two coaches recruit (along with their boosters), then that's fine - they're great at that no question.
I have made a post like this a million times, but I sometimes think this downplays some of what K and Cal do.
Devin Booker is my go to example, for whatever reason. He's an NBA star, he was (relatively) highly rated coming out of HS, so it's probably easy to bucket him in the group of "this guy was going to be a star in the NBA no matter where he went to college". Well, in the 2014 RSCI rankings, he was ranked 23rd. Good, but by no means elite, or at a level that screams obvious NBA star. Chris McCullough (among others), who I don't believe is an NBA star, was ranked a few spots ahead of him. I'm obviously not saying Cal is the only reason Booker is a star or anything, but it isn't like being the 23rd ranked player in your HS class makes you preordained to be an nba star, or even a lotto pick.
Tyler Herro (who had a down season this year, to be sure) was 35th coming out of HS, played one year at UK, and was a lotto pick.
Jamal Murray was 71st, but that's a little different, he was Canadian so not ranked by all the services. But even so, Scout had him 12th, behind, among others Henry Ellenson, Stephen Zimmerman, Diamond Stone, and Malik Newman. In hindsight it appears obvious all these guys would be lotto picks, but not sure you can say that at the time.
